A Better Place
by Alley Cat Sunflower
Summary: "You are here now, in your rightful place," murmured Lunafreya, eyes deep as the ocean and so compelling that Ardyn found himself adrift in them. Faced with such serenity, he could not possibly imagine rougher seas. / Released at last from his living hell, Ardyn finally finds his paradise—blissful ignorance—in the beyond. For Lunardyn Week, Day 3: Healing. I do not own FFXV.


"Your Majesty?"

At the sound of a familiar voice, calling as if from a great distance, Ardyn's eyes finally fluttered open—but the sky was such a vivid blue, and the clouds so brightly white, that he had to close them again. Still, he had seen and felt enough to know that his head lay in a woman's lap, his body resting on soft grass.

"Where…?" This was nothing like the stone of the Lucian capital, or the timeless spaceless expanse of the Crystal, though he found that they were both more impressions than real memories. The more he tried to think, the more the context beyond the places eluded him.

"The palace grounds, sire," said the woman, and Ardyn dared open his eyes again, more slowly this time. Her appearance was familiar, but he couldn't look at her for too long. Her head was haloed by the sun, and her hair was pale enough to catch its light. "You were having a nightmare, and I was powerless to wake you. Forgive me if I was too forward."

Ardyn shook his head, sitting up slowly to look at the woman. Her features shifted the more he looked at them, ephemeral images of every woman he had ever known, but they always seemed to settle back into one. He squinted at her, trying to remember her name…

 _Lunafreya._

His gut twisted. Even now, beyond the grave, she did not let him rest. Yet he found, as he tried to track down the source of his anxious resentment, that he remembered as little of the woman herself as he did of his previous surroundings.

"You called me 'Your Majesty'," said Ardyn. As none had ever done before. "Of what am I the king?"

"Of Lucis, naturally," said the woman, and the world around Ardyn seemed to spin with the tilt of her head. Memories fell into place like sudden raindrops; the Crystal's gratitude, his coronation, his brother's broad smile…

 _No_. Vivid as those experiences seemed in the moment, they were but empty fantasies: that much he knew, with a bitter certainty he could not explain. Shaking his head vigorously to dislodge these false recollections, Ardyn scowled at the woman. Was she here to torture him with all that might have been, yet never was? "And who are _you_?"

The woman's expression took on a tinge of sadness, and her voice was quiet as she replied, "You would know better than I."

Ardyn looked her over carefully. "May I call you Lunafreya, then?"

"If that is who I am to you, then yes," she said, and as she spoke, her face adopted Lunafreya's features more permanently. Even her voice, already so soft and sweet, sounded all the softer and sweeter for being definitively _hers_. "Though, more accurately, I am the light she gave you in the end."

The end. An image of the One True King flashed across Ardyn's mind, and he grimaced. Even forgetting his exact sins, Ardyn could not help but feel that it was deeply wrong for the Oracle of the Chosen to speak to him in such a way. This must be another of the Crystal's illusions, playing on fears and desires he had long since forgotten.

"The nightmare has not left you yet, I see," said Lunafreya, clear-eyed in her inexplicable grief for him. "Are you so unwilling to see what is before you that you turn to the pain you left behind?"

"There is nothing before me," said Ardyn, getting unsteadily to his feet.

" _I_ am before you," said Lunafreya more forcefully, looking up at him. "Your humble guide in a world you refuse to know. Why do you reject your own paradise, and cling to the fading dream of a life you despised?"

"That life is all I have." Even with so little of it left to him.

"You must remember it, and let go," murmured Lunafreya. "If you will not follow me into the light on your own, then take my hand, and I will lead you there."

She reached up for him, and Ardyn hesitated. His sense of self-preservation urged him to refuse, but what self did he have left to preserve? Under the circumstances, he had precious little to lose. His life had always been worthless, and now, it was even more so. Even if Lunafreya intended to dissolve the remnants of his identity completely, so much the better: Ardyn wearied of the burden called existence.

Letting out a short sigh as he recognized his helplessness, he reached down and grasped her hand… but as soon as they touched, his head throbbed, and he grit his teeth to keep from crying out. Another torrent of memories poured into his mind, sharper and heavier than the last with the force of their absolute truth, and the weight forced him back to his knees.

Soul aching with recollections of Noctis and his comrades, Ardyn felt again all their meetings and partings, intertwined, as they banded together against him. And one by one, each excruciating remembrance was wrested from his enfeebled grasp, ripped from his mind, leaving his spirit sore and stinging so that he could hardly bear the pain… until finally, he faced only eternal emptiness.

All that time, had that been what he truly fought against? Or had he fought _for_ it instead?

A hand on Ardyn's cheek startled him, a soft thumb brushing away the last of many tears he had not realized he had shed. How long had it been since he had wept? And how long had he been weeping? All his questions were drowned out by sweet sensation, the feeling of skin on skin—unfelt for centuries. Except when the Oracle, the _real_ Oracle, had grasped his arm.

Lying… dying… by his hand.

"You are here now, in your rightful place," murmured Lunafreya, eyes deep as the ocean and so compelling that Ardyn found himself adrift in them. Faced with such serenity, he could not possibly imagine rougher seas. Relaxing despite himself, he allowed the last of his troubled recollections to slip gently into oblivion. "It was only a dream, Your Majesty. Let go."

"A dream," muttered Ardyn, glancing around, and sniffled somewhat self-consciously in the aftermath of tears. This place was too pristine, too perfect, for him to believe in its reality. Lunafreya's fingers stirred against his cheek, perhaps in an attempt to scatter his thoughts again, but he took her wrist in his hand—slender, frail, so easily broken. He _could not_ let her get the better of him.

But even as the impulse to hurt her surged through his body, Ardyn frowned. When and wherefore had such savage instincts become reflexive? "M-my… apologies," he managed, remorseful words wrenching themselves out of a raw and tender place. (His heart, Ardyn realized, though he had no idea why he should forget he had one.)

"I'm certain that you have nothing to be sorry for."

Ardyn moved Lunafreya's hand carefully from his face, but even as he released her, he found himself already craving human contact again. It felt as though it had been thousands of years since anyone had touched him like that. "Still," he said. "Forgive me."

Lunafreya gave him a reassuring smile, her eyes warm and glistening. "If there is anything to forgive, you have already been forgiven," she said. "More to the point, I am glad you've finally awakened."

"Oh, I doubt very much that I am awake right now," said Ardyn, glancing around. Even having lost his grip on whatever his own reality might have been, he still had lingering doubts about this one. "But at least I seem to have slipped into a rather more pleasant dream."

"Is there nothing I can do to prove my existence to you?"

"You can try to shock me awake," said Ardyn, tapping his cheek. "Why don't you slap me?" A pinch was not enough. His body seemed to tingle, as if in the aftermath of numbness. He needed to feel something, really _feel_ it—even if it was pain.

Shifting in place, Lunafreya laughed, eyes dancing, and Ardyn echoed her smile automatically. "To strike a king is treason," she pointed out, tilting her head. "You would ask me to commit such a crime for the sake of an experiment?"

"To disobey a king is _also_ treason," countered Ardyn, grin widening, and wiped his eyes. Why had he been crying? These must be tears of joy, at the beauty of the world around him. "Go on; do it. If this is real, I promise I'll pardon you."

Lunafreya shook her head. "I can't help but think your whiskers might hurt me," she said, eyeing his face, and Ardyn rubbed his chin. She had a point. "All I have to do is _shock_ you, correct?"

"Yes, but somehow, it feels as though I've seen everything," said Ardyn, glancing aside thoughtfully. "I don't know what else you could…!"

As he spoke, Lunafreya leaned in and kissed him—and with that, his conscious mind finally shut down, his soul opening itself to possibility.

She drew him in with practiced innocence, soft and warm and gentle lips brushing against his like the spring breeze around them. More memories glowed into existence like sunlight with her every tender touch. Ardyn breathed them in deeply with the scent of wildflowers… chased them down and drank them in with tentative tongue… explored their truth with fingers interwoven in hair, and clutching cloud-white fabric.

Ardyn Lucis Caelum was the protector of Lucis, healer of his people, and the Crystal had crowned him their king. This woman was Lunafreya, servant of the Six and the most beautiful lady in all the land. And, if he remembered correctly, the woman his brother kept insisting he should marry despite their difference in age, which seemed to him millennia. But _she_ didn't seem to have a problem with it, now did she…?

The thought jolted Ardyn back to himself, and he broke away for breath, only to realize that Lunafreya had somehow ended up _beneath_ him. She lay on her back, pale golden hair fanned out under her, gazing up at him with shining eyes and rosy cheeks. And he rested over her, propped up on his elbows, without the faintest idea how he had gotten there.

Sitting up again in a hurry, Ardyn cleared his throat, wishing he had his hat to hide his face, but he seemed to have misplaced it somewhere before coming outside. Or perhaps the wind had swept it off without his notice. "S-sorry," he said. "I seem to have forgotten myself."

"Dear Majesty," said Lunafreya, her expression mild and affectionate, and he glanced down at her. "Do not apologize for claiming what is rightfully yours."

"Mine," whispered Ardyn, and for a fleeting moment, in her eyes he glimpsed eternity: the light of the Crystal and its gentle acceptance, almost apologetic. So this was paradise. "Can it be?"

Lunafreya sat up, reaching toward him. "You are here, and that is proof enough," she murmured, brushing his hair out of his face, and guided him to lie down beside her. "Rest now, my king. I will watch over you until you wake again."

But as she spoke, momentary fear gripped Ardyn's heart. Something unseen whispered to him that Lunafreya meant everything; _she_ was his heaven, far more than these beloved grounds, as evidenced by that selfless kiss. This world would not be so bright—or perhaps could not even exist—without her. "And will you be here?"

Smiling, Lunafreya reached forward to cover his eyes with her soft hand, and brushed down across his face as if to close them: he obliged. "Yes, sire," she breathed, and his body finally relaxed into the peace she had promised. "Always."


End file.
